A meeting place to exchange views, no matter how different or diverse these may be. Keeping these civil and courteous would be appreciated

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead

From the Sydney Morning Herald, an article by Daniel Fitton titled Gillard on a slippery slope with statement on the terrible bias of the Australian government for Israel:(Note: other than photo of PM Julia Gillard, images here are not from this SMH article but inserted by me)

Julia Gillard's lopsided statement on the conflict in Gaza and Israel leaves an open question about Australia's support for assassination.

PM Julia Gillard

The missile attack that ended the life of Ahmed Said Khalil al-Jabari was not the beginning of this latest round of violence - but most certainly a dramatic escalation.For Gillard to urge ''both Hamas and Israel to exercise restraint'' but not even mention the attack appears disingenuous. The government does no favour to Israel by giving tacit support for an act Australia itself views as contrary to international law.

Nazism lives on

Israel does have a right to defend itself, as Gillard said - but that does not mean Israel is always right. There is a dangerous and slippery slope here that should not be ignored. Killing without trial - and at a distance - can be portrayed as ''surgical'' but it raises messy ethical questions about due process and trust in secret intelligence information that cannot be tested.

The same questions are also raised by drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas and in the deserts of Yemen. The Obama administration last year deployed a drone to kill a US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, without trial and on dubious legal standing.

The new Nazi camps

The raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, by contrast, at least had the prospect of taking the al-Qaeda leader alive and bringing him to trial.

Jabari, the Hamas military commander, was himself an accused killer, with ''blood on his hands'', but the decision by the Netanyahu government to kill him was far more complicated than the crisp few seconds of video footage suggests.Most importantly the question still hangs: why kill him now?[kaytee's comment: because the Israeli election is just around the corner, on 22 January 2013 to elect the 19th Knesset]

Seig Heil

Gillard was rightly critical of Hamas, condemning ''the repeated rocket and mortar attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip'' and calling on them to cease action immediately.She was also correct to say ''attacks on Israel's civilian population are utterly unacceptable''.But she should have also included a reference to the deeply troubling prospect of legitimising assassination.

Alas, like the US, Australia has a very powerful pro-Israeli lobby, which ensures (probably through political funding) that the two major political parties, Labor and Coalition (comprising Liberal + National Parties) stay staunchly pro-Israel.

more correctly "Zionist power"

However, some MPs (from Labor, Liberal and the Greens) are sympathetic with the Palestinian cause and have called for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which of course Israel does not want.In 2010, Australia expelled an Israeli Embassy official as a symbolic protest against Israel for forging and using Australian passports for its agents during the assassination of a Hamas man, Mahmud al-Mabhuh in Dubai.

former Aus Foreign Minister Stephen Smith

Australia did so most reluctantly and against protests by the right wing Coalition. The (then) Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said:"These investigations and advice have left the government in no doubt that Israel was responsible for the abuse and counterfeiting of these passports."

"This is not what we expect from a nation with whom we have had such a close, supportive relationship," he said. "These are not the actions of a friend.""The government takes this step much more in sorrow than in anger."

"... more in sorrow than in anger ..."? That's the extent of how powerful the pro-Israeli lobby is in Australia, as it is in the USA.

We have just witnessed with deep disappointment and disgust at how the USA has blindly, automatically and subserviently supported Israel in its current disproportionate bombardment of Gaza, again,

And
the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and
commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead with the edge of
the sword, with the women and the children.

[Judges 21:10]

without bothering to examine or plain ignoring the root cause of the Palestinian dissatisfaction, frustration and anger, arising from loss of land stolen by Israel, deprivation of decent living by Israel's deliberate ghetto-risation of Palestinians (in the way the Nazis did to European Jews), sufferings from Israeli imposed rules, procedural obstacles and oppression.

Israeli created ghettos

In a synopsis
to his book, Michael Sheur, a 22-year CIA veteran and its former head of the Osama bin Laden desk and author of the book Imperial Hubris wrote

describing Israel’s
implacable intent to destroy Palestine by whatever means necessary: starvation,
steadily expanding settlements, military force, and/or assassinations, and of the arrogant ignorance of the US and
Western diplomats and the fools’ role they play in Palestinian and Israeli
hands.

Michael Sheur

Michael Sheur was subsequently fired from his position as a senior fellow of The Jamestown Foundation in February 2009 for stating that "the current state of US-Israel relationship undermined US national security".Now, what do you think of Dr Mahathir's assertion that (Zionist) Jews rule the world by proxy?

Us foreign policy has only one aim vis-a-vis Israel - make the Middle East a comfortable place for Israel to live happily ever after. The US war machine has paid a heavy price in terms of man, money and machine for over four decades and has no seen the light of day. This a tough issue and, unfortunately, we can only wait for the US to have a change of hearts.

The Palestinians had been firing volley after volley of rockets into Israel for weeks, without the world press bothering to report on it. I guess a Yid life is not worth mentioning, but a dead Palestinian is headline news.We know, in the end the Yids have to defend themselves, no one else cares.

this is a rather one-sided and biased article by you. As much as you condemn the west for its support of israel, you yourself are as guilty of supporting the palestinian cause blindly. There have been deaths and casualties on both sides and while the IDF's response may have been overwhelming, it is only the use of overwhelming force that is an effective deterrent against future rocket attacks. I'm sure you'd like to live peacefully in your own home without facing rocket attacks? Please do not ignore also the right of Israelis to live in peace. No one wants to prolong the palestinians' suffering but they themselves or rather, their leaders, are as much to blame for their unhappy state of affairs today.

I've always supported the Israeli right to live, but within the 1967 borders, as per UNSC Resolution 242.

But Israel has been arrogantly gobbling up the West Bank and now evicting Palestinians from the Jerusalem neighbourhood. It imposes a severe harsh oppressive livelihood especially in West Bank and Gaza to encourage Palestinians to migrate or leave the area. Even the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has testify to this intention by many recounting.

And how has Israeli overwhelming force ever stop the Palestinian underground from continuing its insurrection? It can't as can be witnessed that the insurgency continues unabated.

The current use of force is related to the coming Israeli election, not unlike our Malaysian scenario, where the Ketuanan mob are shouting out their lungs about the enemies being at the gates.

I don't think Fajr-5 ballistic missiles, like what the Palestinians have fired at Israel could be called an "insurgency". Its a 3rd party national military intervention in the conflict, and Israel in fact exercised restraint for weeks in not responding immediately, instead warning the Palestinians to stop.The Palestinians were given every opportunity to stop lobbing the missiles before the air strikes started...they didn't

Ktemoc is usually one-sided...if you read the rest of the articles in his blog...most of his remainding followers are like minded groupies...either anti-Yisrael or anti-YawnWar , depending on the subject of his article..

Yid, where do think Israel's armaments like cluster and phosphorous bombs dropped from F-15/16 aircraft and machines-gunning Apache gunships and Abraham tanks come from, if not a 3rd party insidious intrusive intervention?

Are you aware that Israel has regularly been assassinating Hamas and Fatah leaders, ghettorising Palestinian enclaves to the extent that commerce is no longer viable, etc etc?

What can the militarily/financially much weaker Palestinians do to regain their land?

and compare the marginalised Palestinians to the US-sponsored insurgents of Libya and Syria, the latter being considered by the Yanks as freedom fighters while the Palestinians are terrorists (because Israel says so)

Ktemoc dismissing the opposition to the Assad regime in Syria as simply US-sponsored insurgents is typical of a left-wing closed mind.The opposition in Syria started last year as an offshoot of the Arab spring.

Homegrown and peaceful.

As the murderous regime first turned secret police, then army forces, ultimately heavy artillery and bombers and helicopter gunships on the opposition, they naturally fought back. Its a Hillbilly rebellion fighting with Hillbilly weapons. The are no American weapons in sight. There is a small, unreliable trickle of arms other Arab countries, who are trying hard to cover their tracks for fear of antagonising Syria and Iran. That's about the extent of foreign sponsorship.

There is blood flowing in Syria, far, far , far more than what's happening between Israel and the Palestinians.

It can not be stated enough that it was Hamas that started this tragedy by firing 750 rockets into Israel. If Singapoe, short of declaring war on Malaysia, fired 750 rockets into Johor from across the Johor straits , you can kiss Singapore good-bye. No country in the world would tolerate that type of military action. Every country would attack, the cry of "you must use restraint" would be totally ignored by ALL COUNTRIES.

Yid, you're of course deliberately ignoring the context of the Israel-Palestinian tragedy, by pretending that the Palestinians have been naughty firing hundreds of rockets into peace loving innocent Israeli homes, for no apparent reason than Arabic hatred for Israelis. You have omitted mentioning the theft of huge swath of Palestinian land by Israelis. Those Palestinians want their land back, and until that can be settled, the conflict continues unabated.

The Israelis can't stop that as have been shown that their oppressive heavy handed murderous ops in Cast Lead hasn't deterred the oppressed as was hoped for.

I'm not dismissing the Syrian authorities' murderous ops against their own people. what I said was the insurgents have been aided (militarily and financially) by Americans (both the administration and "NGOs") who would of course deemed them as freedom fighters, a label the US refuses to recognize as applicable to the Palestinian insurgents because that would have been against Israeli propaganda.

I haven't written anything about the Syrian internal strife for the reasons I can't and won't write on every damn conflict in the world.

Ktemoc is of course right. The vile and pernicious Israelis have their Iron Dome, which needless to say, has been set up with the (unfair) help of the even more vile US. This gives the lie to their declared need to use force to stop Palestinian expression of frustration. All the more reason to support the peaceful and helpless downtrodden Palestinians who are only lobbing a few rockets which they doubtless bought with their own money. Have you seen any pictures of Israeli wounded and dead especially babies? That says it all!

KTemoc probably needs to read up why the Palestinians are fodder of the deeper passions that run in that part of the world by reading up on this man Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini. The naked nature of pure evil in humans are never clear unless we are willing to take a principled stance of neutrality. No the Jews are not the problem, it is Arab Dogma that is.

More than any other current conflict in the world, the Israeli-Arab wars harken back to the primordial fights that have riven Homo Sapiens for the last 10,000 years. The I and A here could well be any competing tribe, clan or family group going back to the Stone Age.

A: You stole my landI: You stole my well (In the desert, water wells are life, even more than land)

A: You killed my fatherI: You killed my son

A: You raped my daughterI: You ravaged my wife

A: This is my landI: This is my land

A: My sons will carry on the struggle to recover my landI: My descendants will continue to fight for our land

Finally (hopefully not)A: Your descendants will cease to existI: We will slay all your progeny

About Me

Just a bloke interested in the socio-political whatnots around the world, particularly those in Malaysia. Loves a laugh or/and story or two, or more, but loves civility and courtesy much more, especially in politics